Gourango Gachhi’s younger daughter graduated from Bagula College with honours in Bangla. She was preparing for various exams, one of which might lead to a job. She collected the forms for the primary school too. The letter asking her to sit for the test reached a few days later.

Whole groups of her classmates were taking similar tests. When the results were declared, Rekha Gachhi’s name was on the list. She went on to clear the viva as well. The interviewers asked about her father. She had already explained about her family, marking “cultivation” as her father’s occupation. Fumbling for the English words to describe the occupation of cutting date palm trees to extract juice, she had blurted out: “Cultivation.”

She would join the Kolagachhi Primary School. Meanwhile, her repeated visits to the D.I. office and other concomitant rituals had come to an end. Baba could count till twenty. Had never learnt to read or write. Blind-in-one-eye Thakuma lived in one corner of the house. Clad in unwashed clothes and unable to walk, she would sit all day and chew paan, mashing the leaves in a small bamboo mortar. She spoke softly when one went near her. Sometimes she dragged herself from shed to house, bent at her waist.

Upon seeing her name on the panel, Rekha had rushed to touch Thakuma’s feet. She would go to school today. She took an early bath. Just the day before Thakuma had asked her how many students there were in her school. She had seen around a hundred of them. The children from the Muslim neighbourhood, some fishermen’s children, some Bagdi and Namashudra children, and one or two from Ghosh families. Thakuma had asked her to buy a hundred pens. Rekha had not asked why.

Before leaving for school, Rekha again approached Thakuma to touch her feet.

“Have you taken the pens?” Softly.

“Why, no!”

“You didn’t ask me why I told you to get

them.”

“No—why?”

“Hand one to each and every child. For a thousand years our people haven’t been able to write—they’re blind even though they have eyes. What others have written are taken to be true. To erase those thousand years, everyone has to take up a pen and write. Say so to the little darlings when you hand them the pens. Hurry now, or you’ll be late.”

The girl returned from school. After dusk, she sat down to study with a hurricane lamp. Then, exhausted, she fell asleep at some point. The nib of her pen started to fly. When it touched a considerable height, it seemed, from a distance, as if a giant snake had covered the entire day. It grew dark, a storm erupted, followed by pounding rain. Inky black raindrops.

The pages of all the old religious books and manuscripts from every temple, mosque, and church flew off in the storm. Black ink wiped everything off the pages strewn all across the universe; then, the girl ran over them like one possessed. Wherever she stepped, blank pages emerged. The children followed her—armed with pens, sat on the paper and began to write a new history. 

Selected by Mini Krishnan

Reproduced courtesy of Stree Samya

Illustrations by Siddharth Sengupta

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